The Lupin Chronicles
by CHazell2
Summary: A story exploring the family background of Remus Lupin. Where his parents came from and how Remus came to be bitten. Above all this is a gay love story of two people caught in circumstances which they could not control.


_**The Lupin Chronicles**_

_**Part One: Elizabeth**_

_Prologue:_ _Friday, 3__rd__ of May 1998_

She sat on a bench, waiting for the interview to begin. Around her, people were bustling about, setting up lights and cameras in the cavernous television studio. Various shouts of "Move that camera around a little bit" and "Mind your backs there" were to be heard as men or women, their arms filled with equipment made their respective ways to their supposed places.

The studio audience were being shuffled into their seats. As she listened with half an ear to the person who was making small talk besides her, Elizabeth looked at them with the ease long born of secretly watching numerous, countless audiences file into narrow velvet plush seats to hear her sing but she never tired of feeling the sense of anticipation that always seem to hang in the air and the excited chatter. She was getting too old for this sort of thing; it was all so much fuss. This tired her and she was of an age now when she just wanted to get her feet up. She was seventy-seven, really time to slow down a bit.

She knew that she was being interviewed because of her recent announcement that she was retiring, also because she was known as being at the forefront of the greatest Wagnerian sopranos in the world, second only to the great Birgit Nilsson and various kind critics had raved about her portrayal of Brunnhilde as being "definitive".

A red haired woman was talking to her, going on about something like "You must wear this microphone so that the audience can hear you." or something like that. Elizabeth stifled a sign of boredom. She knew all this. "I may be old, but I am not stupid," Elizabeth thought in slight anger. "No need to treat me like I am a few short of a bucket load!"

One had to be polite as Nanny used to say and her invariable response when Elizabeth had said that she couldn't do something. "There's no such word as can't." Dear old Nanny, always there when there was something to be mended, always willing to listen with a kind ear to various tales of triumphs, smooth angry tears because Lionel had been so beastly, grandiose plans for the future and an enthusiastic listener when Mummy commanded you to sing for the guests.

Elizabeth shock herself from her memories, just in time for a cameraman was coming up to her. He looked about thirty and was casually dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. Over the t-shirt, he wore a crumpled shirt. His face was attractive and he looked like a person that you can trust. Elizabeth idly wondered what a nice-looking man like that had chosen to go into the cut-throat world of television. His mop of light brown hair was slightly too long, as if he had not had a hair-cut for some considerable time. His manner of walking was slightly like that of an over-grown puppy, all gangly limbs and Elizabeth could see bum fluff on his face. It was if he never really outgrew childhood.

For a moment, she could believe that the man was Remy and she very nearly rose to hug him in delight, but it wasn't. It was a totally different person. Remus. Where was he? Elizabeth felt in her bones that something dreadful had happened to her son. No, she mustn't think that. There must be a perfectly simple explanation about why he has disappeared without a word? 

She just hoped that he was just happy wherever he may be. The last time that she had seen him was 26 months ago, when he came over for his thirty- sixth birthday lunch. It was roast pork, his favourite. She did so hope that Remy was alright, and that nice Sirius, who obviously adored Remy, was taking good care of him.

The child-man came to a halt in front of her and extended a hand toward her. "We are ready to start shooting now, Dame Elizabeth. If you would like to come this way please?"

Elizabeth gladly took his hand and as she rose, she saw the whole area immediately go quiet because the star of the show was coming to take her seat. She, Elizabeth was the star of the show, and she begun to feel better. This was really no different when she was waiting to go on stage. There wasn't any difference at all, except that here she will be expected to talk for her supper, not sing for it.

The presenter was waiting in his place patiently. For one mad instant, Elizabeth thought that he was Michael Parkinson. Dear old Parky. She had always loved appearing on Parkinson, Michael always asked the right questions, and he seemed to have a knack of making you feel at ease in front of the camera so that you always felt comfortable with him. The presenter became more in focus. It was not Michael Parkinson, but a younger man. Goodness, everybody seemed to be younger and younger these days.

Elizabeth gladly eased into the shiny leather chair set slightly at an angle, which had the effect of her addressing the audience rather than to the presenter. She was aware of lights snapping on and the vivid brightness of the lamps made her eyes water but she blinked and turned towards the presenter.

Robert Heyward studied the lady that he was about to interview. She looked like what a respectable grandmother ought to look, in a light brown skirt and blouse of white cotton with a cardigan of green wool. She had a discreet row of seed-pearls around her neck and her grey hair was dressed in a becoming way. She wore black court shoes and a brown leather handbag rested besides her chair. Dame Elizabeth Willoughby looked kind and her eyes were bright and they darted everywhere as if they were hungry with lust for life.

Robert could see that his guest had once been very pretty indeed and remnants of her prettiness were to be seen in her smile and in the way that she carried herself. Robert could see that on her wedding finger, she had a worn gold ring. "Probably from her husband." he thought. He himself was going through a very messy divorce from his wife and he was feeling pretty stressed out from all the constant wrangling over who was going to get custody of their daughter, Julie. But his personal problems were not on air tonight, Dame Elizabeth was.

Robert sighed and nodded to the cameras who then begun clicking and rolling. The director called, "Cameras rolling?" Having ascertained that they were, the director called out,

"Action!"

They might as well begin.

The audience started to clap as the opening music begun to play. Then Robert begun to speak,

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Arts Review. Tonight is a very special night because I have with me, one of the greatest British sopranos of our generation. Dame Elizabeth Willoughby. She has garnered world-wide praise for her musicality and her workmanship. Her interpretation of roles such as Brunnhilde, Leonore, Isolde and Strauss' Marschaillin has been critically acclaimed all over the world. She has also performed with some of the world's leading orchestras and her farewell performance singing _Das Lied von der Erde_ at the Royal Festival Hall on Tuesday evening was greeted with a standing ovation." Robert turned to face Dame Elizabeth.

"Dame Elizabeth, thank you so much for coming tonight."

"Thank you." Her voice was clear and she had the old fashioned English clipped upper class accent.

"Dame Elizabeth, the first question I want to ask you, is why have you decided now to retire completely?"

Elizabeth clasped her hands in her lap. "It is a mixture of reasons, but the most important reason is I think, is that everybody has to make this awful decision at some point to stop. When does one stop working? And circumstances being what they were at the time, I didn't want to make a clean break and decide that I wouldn't sing another note, which would have been very hard for me. I thought I would rather do things gradually and cut out a certain kind of work rather than make this clean break and I hoped to continue with other sections of my working life, which I have done very successfully."

Elizabeth shifted slightly in her chair as Robert Heyward asked the next question. "You were made a Dame of the British Empire before your semi-retirement in 1992 and since then, you have been doing concerts. It is quite clear from the critical reviews that you did not take this decision because you had doubts about the quality of your voice. Is it because an opera singer's life is much more taxing than recitals, do you think?"

Elizabeth thought for a moment with her face screwed up and replied with candour. "I suppose that in some ways, it is much more taxing physically. By that I mean the actual physical movements, the actual length of rehearsals in the theatre, the whole business about the stage and theatre is just hard physical slog, and although mentally, recitals, certainly recitals are just as hard, there wasn't that much pressure." Elizabeth smiled hesitantly, "I am not too entirely sure if that is the right word, but essentially it seemed to me like the sensible thing to do and I shall miss it terribly. I enjoyed singing opera and giving my interpretation of the great operatic roles such as Brunnhilde and Leonore."

Robert Heyward leaned forward and nodded his head to show that he was interested; indeed he was interested, he was enjoying this much more than he thought he would. Then he faced the audience. "Now we are going to show Dame Elizabeth in one of her greatest roles."

The screen on the back of the set suddenly turned on and a video recording of the Immolation Scene of Wagner's _Gotterdammerung _begun to play. Elizabeth recognised the recording as that made in the 1970s and one of her greatest triumphs. As she watched her younger self sing Brunnhilde, she realised that she was singing the middle part of the scene when she accuses Wotan and forgives him. It had always been her favourite part of the scene.

Meanwhile the studio audience was completely engrossed in the performance, they saw Dame Elizabeth play Brunnhilde, which was a notoriously difficult role to sing convincingly, as a strong woman filled with humanity, despairing yet forgiving of her father. Lumps came into their throats when she sang "_Ruhe, ruhe, O Gott,"_ with love and forgiveness in her glorious singing voice.

The clip finished and the audience burst into wild applause. Elizabeth smiled nervously at the sound but she was proud of herself, she could not believe how well she had done.

After the audience had quieted down, Robert asked his next question. "Watching you just now, you were acting, there was characterisation going on. It isn't if you acted only when you are singing an opera, and totally relaxed when you sing in concert because the same element is there all the time, isn't it?

"Absolutely true, the element never goes away at all, you act when you are singing on the concert stage just as much as you would on the opera stage. It is exactly the same process, the same mental process, the same vocal process. It is just the plain simple facts of putting on costumes of all kinds and walking about a stage."

"A lot of rehearsals too?" Robert added, which Elizabeth then replied.

"Yes, very hard rehearsals. Also deep emotion, the kind of emotion that you can play on a stage but you couldn't stand up and do on the concert platform because the audience would then think that you had gone off your rocker. But you are quite right; the process is to a certain extent the same. One is characterising all the time."

Robert shifted in his chair and clasped his hands in his lap and bent slightly forward. "You know, what surprised me, and I only just discovered this the other day, that you had never sung at the Met in New York and you only ever sang the once, I think at Bayreuth." Now he inquired, "Now that you are retiring completely, do you feel in any way that you had missed out by not doing more opera abroad, internationally?"

There was a pause and Elizabeth looked as she was thinking very hard, then said, "My fans in America reproach me very much for this and I am very sorry that people in the countries that I visit had never seen that side of my working life. It is a sort of element that is missing. They can't imagine what I am like as an actress on the stage. As I have enjoyed acting very much and I feel that as a singer, that to be a rounded performer, you have to have stage experience for I truly believe that the acting is equally as important as singing. People have to believe in your character and you can't just sing without any characterisation for it would just look totally ridiculous. So I do feel that there is a huge facet of me that they won't ever know. But not from the point of view that you are saying that- well I actually only sung so and so on the stage at the Met. I don't think that interests me." A hint of pride then crept into her voice. "The thing that has been marvellous is the quality of the stage work that I have done in this country."

Robert then said. "But it was your choice, presumably that you didn't travel?"

"Yes, entirely my decision." replied Elizabeth.

"Why was that, do you think? Was it because you disliked travelling?"

Elizabeth sat up in her chair, "No, I have travelled, I do travel a lot. I think again that it is a question of personal circumstances and whether you feel up to singing under that sort of intense pressure. Opera singers today are constantly travelling between opera engagements in all parts of the world and they are always under the pressure to perform well. For me; that would have been very difficult." She continued. "At the beginning there was a specific moment when my career could have opened out into the international arena and so I had a clear cut choice to make. I think that I was lucky to be old enough to be able to make a well-informed choice and to see what would happen to me if I had agreed to do this set and the other on the stage, and what it would have meant. What I saw very clearly was that it would meant spending less time at home, which was something that I absolutely was not prepared to do. Having said that, I do spend quite a lot of time away, especially in the last couple of years. But under those circumstances, I think life would have been unbearable especially when I had a young son to bring up as well."

She couldn't add that the most important and perhaps the only reason as that not only was she was Remus' only bastion in a hostile world but also because that she was pretty much the only one within a ten mile radius of Long Melford that possessed the necessary nursing skills and the courage to be able to deal with the sort of injuries that Remus frequently sustained after his ghastly transformations. It was a great relief to Elizabeth when Remus was allowed into Hogwarts, not least because they had the proper medical facilities. But she couldn't say that they were the reasons why she couldn't travel.

She finished with the statement, "I love this country and I love being here and I love performing for British audiences."

Robert then teasingly said, "You have the reputation of not appearing in anything that you find less than very interesting. Is that true? Are there certain operas that you think are boring and you don't want to do it?"

Elizabeth laughed gently in acknowledgement of the accuracy of that question, "There are certain roles that are musically less interesting to me than others. For instance a role like _Rosenkavalier, _Octavian in_ Rosenkavalier,_ which is a fantastic thing to play. However it is a very, very long opera and very, very hard to do."

She then said in a self-mocking tone. "And it is probably blasphemy for me to say so but a lot of the opera, I think, doesn't justify it. On the other hand, there are marvellous moments, e.g. the Presentation of the Rose and the Trio but an awful lot of the opera is not, I think fulfilling enough." She then smiled to take the sting out of her statement.

Robert then said smoothly. "That bring us onto another point actually, because your repertoire is actually quite small isn't it? Compared to most opera singers. For instance, you hadn't sung any of the Verdi or Puccini operas or any other of the Italian composers. It has mostly been Mahler and Wagner, and occasionally Elgar and Benjamin Britten."

Robert leaned forward with his hands clasped together in his lap. "Again, is that a conscious choice, did you feel that your voice was not for a particular sort of music?"

Elizabeth thought for a second, "Yes, I think that all of us have to weight up the possibilities fairly early on in the career. It was particularly hard for me because I didn't start training until relatively late in life. I was a nurse during the war at St. Thomas's Hospital and I only started 

training in 1952, after my father died. So I had a lot of ground to cover in a short space of time but I was extremely lucky in that I had a wonderful teacher whom gave me excellent advice and guided me in a specific direction."

She smiled slightly in reminiscence as she remembered dear old Professor Thorpe; he had been such fun and a frightfully wonderful teacher. Also the best fun in bed.

"Also I think that you have to take into account, your vocal limitations You could try certain things, as an experiment and I think that it is good to do that but it is like being a sixteen-inch gun. If you haven't got that kind of voice-power, then you would be very foolish to try and sing Verdi, as much as one would like to do it, it is wonderful stuff. But I feel that you have to be sensible about these things and I felt instinctively more at ease with the Mahler and Wagner repertoire."

A long-forgotten memory suddenly rushed into her brain of little two year old Remus tottering about on unsteady legs in his pyjamas, clutching her skirt with hot sticky plump little hands, begging her to cuddle him and sing to him. "Please, Mummy, up, up. Wemus wants Mummy to sing pwetty." He had been so beautiful and loving and Alex had been so proud of his little boy.

She was completely engrossed in the memory that she almost did not hear Mr Heyward say,

"But anyway, I would like to wish you a very peaceful retirement. Do you have any plans at all?"

Elizabeth gave a mental shake and replied, "Life will go on in exactly the same way apart from these very hard physical stints in the opera house and concert hall which I shall miss terribly but I feel that the time is ripe for me to hand on the torch to the next generation and I look forward to spending more time with my family."

That was only too true. The very first thing that she was going to do tomorrow was to try and track down her son and try to help if necessary. Remus had always been too proud for his own good. He had never accepted help very readily, even though he might be starving to death. Elizabeth was going to find her boy and help him for she instinctively knew that he was in some kind of trouble and objections be dammed. She knew that she should have tried to get into contact before but Remus seemed to have vanished completely off the face of the earth. Even the landlord of his last known address, a dingy, cramped little flat in the more insalubrious part of London, had no forwarding address for him.

"I should think that your last night at the Royal Festival Hall last Tuesday must have been a very emotional experience for everybody." Robert Heyward said, reluctantly for he had enjoyed this interview and did not really want to finish.

"I do hope not. I would like to feel that my last night was an exhilarating rather than a heartbreaking experience for everybody involved." said Elizabeth modestly. "The amount of support that I have received from people over the years has been quite simply heart-warming and I feel deeply honoured that I have earned that sort of affection simply through singing."

Robert smiled and gave the words that the TV interview was over, "Dame Elizabeth, thank you very much indeed."

Afterwards Elizabeth was sitting in her dressing room, drinking from a plastic cup of iced water for it had been very hot in that studio, what with the studio lamps and she felt stifled.

She was alone and she was just taking a few minutes to relax her mind before mustering up the energy to gather her things, hail a taxi, go to Liverpool Street and catch the next train for home. First to Mark's Tey, then change trains for the Sudbury train and then a taxi home to Long Melford. She supposed that she was lucky that the interview had been as short as it was, otherwise she would have had to stay in a hotel somewhere. But with any luck, she should be able to catch the 9:30pm train.

She was rearranging her handbag when suddenly a crack sounded behind her and she whirled around to see a woman dressed in what appeared to be robes of a sort. The woman's grey hair had come loose out of a tight bun at the back of her head and she looked as if she had been in a fight; for her robes were ripped in several places and her right hand was bandaged. Her face was grim-faced and a scratch ran down the left side and she had a glorious black eye.

"Minerva?" Elizabeth asked incredulously.

Minerva McGonagall nodded her head and slightly smiled, "It's been a long time, Elizabeth."

"You look dreadful".

"Aye, that has to be the understatement of the year."

Elizabeth was seized with a sudden sinking feeling that pooled in her stomach, something dreadful had happened. The dread was so overwhelming that she wanted to be sick. But first, she said, "Minnie, you'd better sit down before you drop!"

Elizabeth helped her friend to sit down in a swivel chair which turned slightly at the sudden weight. Minerva frowned at it with deep suspicion but took the filled glass of water from Elizabeth with thanks in her tired eyes. The woman in robes looked out of place in the white sterile dressing-room with the clinical bars of light.

Elizabeth asked quietly with a note of worry in her voice. "What happened, Minerva? Have you seen Remus, is he alright? For the love of God, what's wrong?"

She listened in shocked horror as Minerva told her about somebody called Voldemort and a great battle at Hogwarts and something to do with a boy called Harry Potter. Dimly she remembered Remus telling her that James Potter had a son- perhaps Harry was the son but that was unimportant. What matters the most now was Remus and whether he was safe.

"Remus, Minerva? Remus? Is he safe?" Elizabeth's voice was rising with urgent panic, her eyes searching Minerva's for any sort of sign that her boy was alright.

Minerva sighed gently and took both Elizabeth Lupin's hands in hers. She had dreaded this moment, but no wizard had thought to take the trouble to inform the Muggle parents of the dead.

"Lizzie, I am so very sorry."

Elizabeth's eyes widened and she shook her head in furious denial. "No." She said quietly, "No".

"Lizzie, I am afraid that Remus is dead. He died from the _Avada Kedavra _curse." Minerva's voice was brisk and business- as though if she told the most dreadful news that a mother should not ever have to hear that she had outlived her child in this way, she could perhaps distance herself from the horror. "He didn't suffer".

Elizabeth's face was deathly white and her eyes gazed at Minerva without seeing. "W-w-who killed him?" Then a spark of hysterical fury. "Was it Greyback, that beastly man who bit my little boy, was it him?"

Minerva swallowed around the lump in her throat. "I am afraid I don't know, Lizzie. Everything was such a blur. It could have been anybody."

She had her suspicions, Dolohov was first on the list and she wouldn't be at all surprised if that bloody woman, Bellatrix had something to do with it as well.

Elizabeth's lip quivered with the shock and the effort of holding her tears back. She made an effort. "Thank you for bringing the news to me, Minerva. It couldn't have been easy for you?"

Minerva held the blue veined hand tightly in hers. "Lizzie, I am so sorry. There is something else too."

Elizabeth listened as Minnie told her about what happened to Remus since the last time she saw her son.

"This is not happening, this is not happening. This is just a nightmare, and I will wake up to find that Remus is still here." Elizabeth thought desperately. "This is not happening!"

She wanted to race away, to be anywhere, anywhere but here. She listened to Minerva explain her son's actions uncomprehendingly.

"Remus was heartbroken when Sirius died. You wouldn't have known it from his face or his body language; but you could tell from his eyes that his whole world had collapsed. He begun to withdraw into himself and away from everybody and he readily agreed to negotiate with the werewolves. Probably hoping that they would tear him to pieces."

Minerva went on. "Albus didn't even notice. Too wrapped up in his grandiose plans to save the world. Oh yes, he had far important things to worry about than to comfort a man who had lost the one thing that he loved more than anyone else in the world. He gladly found the time to comfort a disturbed teenage boy with heroic delusions but not Remus, he had no time for a mere werewolf."

Minerva then snorted in self-disgust. "Hah, I even encouraged Tonks to befriend him, hoping that she would bring him out of his shell, I certainly didn't expect _her _to fall for him. There was a mismatched couple if ever there was one, aye and it made him even more miserable. Personally, I blame Molly Weasley, she is always interfering in other people's lives and she doesn't take the trouble to get to know her own children. I am sorry, Lizzie. I should have contacted you but things got on top of me. It's been a very hectic year."

"Sorry Minnie, but did you say that Remus married this girl, Tonks?" Elizabeth questioned.

Minerva sighed, "Yes, he did. We all pushed him into it and at the worst time imaginable. We should have waited but _she _wanted Remus, and have him she would, even though it took a childish tantrum for him to cave in. One could see that he was in shock and he never was any good in standing up for himself at the best of times. You know how he so wanted people to like him. I highly doubt if he had grieved properly for Sirius, just pushed it to the back of his mind, highly unhealthy. Should have made time to be with him. But far too busy with the Potter boy. Should have realised, should ha."

With that Minerva burst into tears and she held onto Elizabeth for dear life, weeping in the older woman's shoulder.

Elizabeth held her oldest friend and let her weep. She felt numb and that she couldn't cry. She was completely devoid of emotion and the pain in her heart was too much. She wanted to go to sleep and never wake up, away from the awful pain of the greatest loss that she had ever experienced. Nothing could compare to the awful pain that she was suffering. Not even when Daddy died, not even when Alexander... But she would not think about that now.

Images swam through her mind of Remus, her little Remy. Remus, chuckling with childish delight as he splashed in the bath. Alexander laughing as he washed his son tenderly and getting soaked. Remus running through the garden, screaming in childish delight. "Can't catch me, Mummy. Can't catch me." Teenage Remus beaming at her, and hugging her tightly in thanks for getting him the book that he had always wanted. Remus and his three friends cycling through Long Melford on their bicycles, causing mayhem with their silly pranks. Remus and Sirius sitting close together on deckchairs in the garden, full of cake and scones and lazily smiling at each other in drowsy contentment. A warm summer night in Long Melford church - watching her 19 year old son and his best friend making their secret vows and wishing them well. Remus as she last saw him, two years ago, filled with happiness and discussing his plans for the future with an innocent Sirius.

Sirius, at this thought. Elizabeth remembered something; Remus had told her that although Sirius was innocent in his eyes and the eyes of everyone that mattered of the murder of James Potter and Lily Potter. But, in the eyes of the world, he was still a convicted criminal.

"Minerva, was Sirius ever cleared?"

Minerva swallowed and said. "Yes he was but it was too late. He was only pardoned after he fell through the Veil."

Suddenly, the knowledge that Remus was never able to live openly with the man that he loved broke through Elizabeth's reserve and she collapsed completely. The two women who had know each other for so long, held each other in solid solidarity.


End file.
